Editor’s Note: On the right, please watch our exclusive interview with Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, and then below, please read an original guest blog to The Foundry from the Governor himself.

We’ve been through a global recession. Now we’re fighting through a stalled recovery. Revenues are the lowest they’ve been in half a century. Their finances a wreck, many states have effectively sunk into bankruptcy.

Indiana is still afloat. In fact, we’ve fared better than most. We continue to meet our obligations without raising taxes, and the reserves we carefully built and protected will get us through the downturn.

But as if we did not already have enough on our plates, the passage and implementation of Obamacare presents us with a whole new set of challenges and a costly to-do list.

I note with special sadness that first and foremost amongst the bill’s consequences will be the probable demise of the Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP). This program is currently providing health insurance to 50,000 low-income Hoosiers. With its Health Savings Account-style personal accounts and numerous incentives for healthy lifestyle choices, it has been enormously popular and successful.

Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid, soon to cover one in every four citizens, will not only scoop up most of HIP’s participants, but will also cost the state between $3.1 and $3.9 billion over the next decade. It is hard to see how my successors as governor will be able to avoid a steep state tax increase to pay for it. Meanwhile, our medical device companies and small businesses will shed jobs as they wrestle with the taxes and penalties levied to help finance Washington’s “reforms.”

Of course, it’s a misnomer to even refer to this as “reform.” It doesn’t reform anything. Instead, it perpetuates and magnifies all the worst aspects of our current system: fee for service reimbursement, “free” to the purchaser consumption, and an irrationally expensive medical liability tort system. It’s a sure recipe for yet more overconsumption and overspending.

There were better options.

Since my election, my state coworkers have had the choice of Health Savings Accounts in lieu of traditional health care plans. The first year this option was made available, some 4 percent of us signed up for it. Six years later, more than 70 percent of our 30,000 state workers have opted for the personal account.

This trend has had a startlingly positive effect on costs for both employees and the state. State employees enrolled in the consumer-driven plan saved more than $8 million in 2010 compared to their coworkers in the old-fashioned preferred provider organization (PPO) alternative. Indiana will save at least $20 million in 2010 because of our high HSA enrollment.

It has also been the source of significant changes in behavior, as state workers with the HSA visit emergency rooms less frequently and are more likely to use generic drugs than co-workers with traditional health care. Hoosiers enrolled in HIP have experienced similar changes in behavior with generic drugs now accounting for 84 percent of all prescriptions used by enrollees.

This is a sharp contrast to the prevalent model of health plans in this country that encourage individuals to buy health care on someone else’s credit card. What seems free will always be overconsumed, compared to the choices a normal consumer would make. Hence our plan’s immense savings.

The condescension of the “reformers” is misplaced. It turns out that typical Americans are neither too dense nor too intimidated to make sound decisions about their own health. This is, of course, a fact that national policy makers sadly ignored during their overhaul of our health are system. Now the rest of us are left to pick up the pieces.

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Mitch is the Man. I hope he will consider running for President. We need someone with his credentials for fixing a broken government. The Indiana HIP plan is light years ahead of Obamacare for extending coverage to those who need it. It's doesn't mess with what's working.

Wake up America! It's another set-up! These slick socialist jamed this Obamacare bill through knowing full well what was in it thus it's rejection by the American people. Pelosi's "we must first pass it" was just another diversion. to disguise their final goal which is the "public option". Full govrenment control of our health system. They expect we will turn to the PO when Obamacare is repealed. Just as with our economical system they are destroying, they are waiting in the wings to replace it with socialism, It's all a set up. To "nudge" the American people into the direction they have always intended.

The country needs to begin permitting and building 100 nuclear power plants during the next 5 to 7 years. Drilling for oil and natural gas must begin immediately Clean burning natural gas, cheap and plentiful, should be used for domestic needs. Oil and coal and alternative energy sources that can compete on their own dime should complete domestic demand and excess oil and coal exported. American has hundreds of years supply of oil gas and coal, enough to begin paying down our debt.Clean air and water standards can be maintained.

Housing must be jump started, the subprime mortgage market brought back.Only this time foreclosures costs must be built into the price of the mortgage.Subprime borrowers, owner occupants only, would pay 2 interest points over the prime market.that would flow directly back to Fannie and Freddie as reserves against foreclosure. If the Home is sold the extra interest payments less a pro rata share of foreclosure costs could be rebated. After 5 to 7 years the extra payments would stop as equity builds to 20%.

If the Federal government will not cooperate, the States will have to seize the initiative and develop their resources.

Indiana's Governor Daniels tells it like it is! He is sane, fair, intelligent, experienced, balanced emotionally, is a hard worker. WE ARE SO LUCKY TO HAVE HIM AS OUR GOVERNOR!! Fortunate we are that he is savvy economically. He helps Hoosiers live within their means–a philosophy unknown to President Obama and his administration.

Came here to read sound reasoning and logic about why Obama's health care bill is bad, and MItch Daniels doesn't dissappoint. He is a great leader and a true fiscal conservative, wtih good ideas about how to help his constituency and his country. If Republicans were smart he would be at the top of everyone's list for 2012 nominee. My only fear is, the GOP is now so conservative that a moderate (and better all around) candidate like Daniels couldn't win a primary.

How can I take this article seriously when Governor Daniel references the health care reform bill as Obamacare. How biased and close minded. I expect as much from some of the zealots out there, but I expect more from a leader and elected official. Please show a little more respect.

Also, what's with all of the animosity directed to the Public Option? Why are so many afraid of a government take over of health care, which isn't what this paticular bill is all about anyway? With millions of people going into bankruptcy over medical bills, our life expectancy, infant mortality, and performance in practically every other category of medical delivery inferior to other industrialized nations, I don't think the government can do much worse than the insurance companies have performed. Our present system is bankrupting us. It's also failing half of our population. Other countries do it much better. If socialistic healthcare delivers better care, to more people, with better results…Bring it on!

I have to believe that the people that are so fantically opposed to reform are acting out of fear that their own care will be compromised in some capacity. So they can have great care but their neighbors living across the street, down the road and all over the place, can have nothing. In my book that's called selfish, selfish, selfish. Yeah, take care of number one and let the rest of them rot. Real nice.

Governor, you have my vote. Wake up America. What makes America great is people taking responsibility for their decisions and actions, and principled leadership with an understanding of the laws of supply and demand. Look to California (my birth state) for where the country is headed and to Indiana or Texas (where I now reside) for where our country could be.

Your comments would be more persuasive were they not so transparently partisan. Health Savings Accounts are utterly incapable of solving the problem of health care for the vast majority of Americans. The problem is bigger than tax-advantaged savings can solve. The problem is systemic; it cannot be addressed by forcing responsibilty downward onto consumers. Only large-scale systemic intervention can possibly be adequate. And what is the only entity capable of such large-scale intervention?: The federal government. This bill was a legitimate atempt to address the problem, although admittedly it fell short of what was needed. The GOP attempts to rationalize their failures to come up with any viable plan are, again, transparent.

[…] The Heritage Foundation has a guest post and video from Republican Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (considered a potential presidential candidate in 2012), who says of the new health law, “it’s a misnomer to even refer to this as ‘reform.’ It doesn’t reform anything. Instead, it perpetuates and magnifies all the worst aspects of our current system: fee for service reimbursement, ‘free’ to the purchaser consumption, and an irrationally expensive medical liability tort system. It’s a sure recipe for yet more overconsumption and overspending.” […]

Failure by the Democrats to provide incentives to let the market operate is not only bad policy leading to higher costs but an insult to every American who the "political class" deem too dense to make health care choices that are in their own economic best interest.

Mitch Daniels is a rock star. He is understated, but extremely effective and rational and understands the free market and how incentives work far better than coercion and force of the blunt hand of overreaching government.

Governor Chris Christie is another example of the same thing, different style. States are excellent laboratories of government and both of these outstanding governors should patent what they are doing, put it in a bottle, and sell it in 2012. We are in desperate need of effective government.

Thank you Governor Daniels, and it doesn't hurt that you're a biker either!

Daniels has kept Indiana's economy above water, but his points here do not address the main goal of Health Care Reform. HIP worked for some low income Hoosiers, but the number of uninsured has risen even as the program has been implemented according to Indiana's Family and Social Services Administration. The goal of reform is to cover those who are uninsured to drive down costs. Further, those government employees can keep their current insurance plan. I understand where Daniels is coming from, but it is from a different angle than health care reform is coming from. I wish other states had at least engaged the policy issue as Indiana and Massachusetts have so that federal reform would have been needless. However, growing uninsured drives up the prices for everyone. I wish more politicians were as straightforward as Daniels to address policy issues.

I lived in Indiana before moving to Maryland. I do not miss Indiana and I would never want to live in that frozen tundra of endless corn fields again, sorry Hoosiers. But, please send us Mitch Daniels, Indiana, we need him here in the socialist state of Murland.We have beautiful forests, mountains, rivers, the ocean, the Chesepeake Bay, and the best crabs in the world! All we need now is Mitch Daniels for our governor, Mitch rocks! We will send you Steny Hoyer and some crabs for him. Ok, just crabs, we know no one wants Hoyer.

We must fight this control over our health anyway we can; they did not worry about correct bill procedures when they deemed it already passed. Technically it is illegal and legally it is unconstitutional. Speaking of "illegal", it is possible that our prez is legally a UK citizen; he also has used eight different social security numbers; something is rotten in the state of DC!

I am an engineer who quit his job with a big multinational firm to start my own software company. Currently, I pay $28000 per year from my own account for private health insurance for our family of 4. I had to pay this amount due to some minor "pre-existing conditions". My wife and I are both relatively healthy, but both of us are over 45 with some medical history and we had a tough time finding affordable private health insurance.

I just listened to Mitch Daniel's video interview about his vision for health care reform and criticizing Obama's health care plan. So what was he really saying in that video? What is his proposal to reform health care? I hope that this is not just limited to introducing Health Savings Accounts for everyone. How is his plan going to deal with preexisting conditions, keep costs down, improve the quality of care, keep patients and doctors in the driver's seat, provide full access, choice of doctors and hospitals, etc, etc? This video just seemed like a bunch of high level feel-good malarkey. How about some real details? If he wants to be credible to people like me, he has got to come up with REAL DETAILS THAT MAKE SENSE. Otherwise, he is just pandering to his constituency, like any other politician.

Governor Mitch Daniels is a very sensible no nonsense sort of guy. I believe that the American public will be open to looking at someone like Governor Daniels as a potential presidential or vice-presidential candidate in 2012.

He has done an excellent job in Indiana and he oozes competence.

Mitch Daniels is light years ahead of President Obama who had no experience in governing anything prior to assuming the most important office in the USA and possibly the world.

Let us hope that Governor Daniels and his family are willing to make the sacrifices necessary and make a run for the White House. More than ever, America needs strong leadership and someone who has some commonsense.

The absolute worse part of Obama care is the so called "If you like your Healthcare you can keep it …ha?..It should have read " If You Like Your Health Care Plan, You Can Start Beating Your Head Against the Wall Now"

Read this and weep, as most people will lose their current employer and retiree healthcare plans

While many U.S. companies initially hoped they could preserve much of their existing group health plans under the new grandfather provision, a new survey by Hewitt Associates, a global human resources consulting and outsourcing company, shows that almost all now believe they will not. Ninety percent of companies said they anticipate losing grandfathered status by 2014, with the majority expecting to do so in the next two years.

Under the “grandfather” provision of the U.S. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, companies can maintain many of their current health care coverage provisions and are required to make fewer changes to plan documents and administrative procedures in order to comply with the new law. Companies can lose their grandfather status if they take certain steps such as reducing benefits, significantly raising co-payment charges, significantly raising deductibles or changing insurance carriers.

None of this is exactly surprising—at least if you’ve been paying attention. Any health system overhaul as sweeping as the PPACA was bound to upset existing coverage arrangements, especially given the dominance of insurance in American health care. But given how disastrous the possibility of forced plan changes proved to HillaryCare in the 90s, the law’s supporters couldn’t admit that. So President Obama and congressional leadership and the progressive activist class had to promise, repeatedly, that no one would have to change plans if they didn’t want to.

Mitch Danlels of Indiana, Chris Christie of New Jersey, Jeb Bush of Florida, Rick Perry of Texas, Sarah Palin of Alaska, Jan Brewer of Arizona, Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, Mitt Romney of Massachussets. These are the capable, successful current or former Republican governers who are poised to lead the country out of the awful mess in which it finds itself under Obama and the Democratic Party's failed leadership.

Add to the mix such rising stars as congressmen Paul Ryan and Jeb Hensarling and Florida senatorial candidate Marco Rubio. What a wealth of fresh, credible talent the Republican Party is presenting to the nation to challenge the incompetence of the present administration. New and creative ideas are coming forth from these and other young Republicans to replace the creaky, failed politics that have driven Europe and the United States to the brink of bankruptcy. The Democrats got what they wanted in 2008: the White House and big congressional majorities, and the results have been disastrous.

All you have to do is listen to people like Marco Rubio (who rose from poverty to become Speaker of the House of the state of Florida) to know that it will be these young Republlicans that will lead an overwhelmingly conservative America forward. I can't wait for this Fall. And for 2012…

Why doesn't the Governor just reject obamacare as unconstitutional and refuse to participate? This is a State responsibility and their health plans seem to be working for them. Stop whining and refuse to participate.

Daniels is on honorable public servant. He has taken responsibility for very difficult decisions and has given the residents of the state of Indiana a fighting chance in this chaotic economic environment. It is my honest hope that he will seriously consider running for the office of President. We need a Hero right now.

I agree with Governor Daniels' comment that the condescension of the "reformers" is misplaced. I too believe, that most Americans are neither too dense , nor too intimidated to make sound decisions about their own health.

Unfortunately, this condescension permeates the thinking of the Obama administration, many in the U.S. Senate and House and even our judicial system. Why is it when someone gets elected, even to the lowest office, they suddenly become all-knowing? Does it have something to do with the observation that "power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely"?

In the United States we have a growing "under-class" who for one reason or another have become more dependent on government to meet their needs. We also have individuals and a political party that panders to this growing under-class promising to take from the "undeserving" rich and give to the "deserving" poor. One of the big problems with this is that the government gets to define and decide who are the "undeserving" rich and who are the "deserving" poor. Some, like many in the Congress and the Administration, may be rich, but found to be "deserving". Others, may be poor, but may be found to be "underserving".

[…] The Heritage Foundation has a guest post and video from Republican Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (considered a potential presidential candidate in 2012), who says of the new health law, “it’s a misnomer to even refer to this as ‘reform.’ It doesn’t reform anything. Instead, it perpetuates and magnifies all the worst aspects of our current system: fee for service reimbursement, ‘free’ to the purchaser consumption, and an irrationally expensive medical liability tort system. It’s a sure recipe for yet more overconsumption and overspending.” […]

I made the mistake of looking up and reading the Health Care Bill and wrote my synopsis: "The horrifying take down of the American Health Care Industry. The license to kill any (or every) Medical Business with draconian fines and remove all joy from the practice of Medicine." I used to write Synopses of Bills for the Colorado Legislature (that was before they were all written in Newspeak). In the Sixties the Communist Party actually took over the AMA and produced a number of changes which have come to fruition creating the Health Care Crisis (which never actually existed, it was just statistical lies created for Political gain.)

The Obama Administration is out to destroy the American Economy in every way that it can. That is no exaggeration and Health Care is just the most recent segment under the gun. The Health Care Bill does not solve anything, but it was not designed to solve any problems. It was designed for one purpose alone, to Socialize Medicine. Well! That's illegal. Communism is illegal under our Constitution. Please, folks! We have to understand that these Demolition Plutocrats (Demo-crats) have the evil intention of destroying America and supplanting it with Communism. They love to run things into the ground and American Medicine is being run into the ground.

Actual Communists have usurped Representation in this Country in order to fulfill Karl Marx's plan. I read the documents, this is really what is happening. Why did they close so many Medical Schools, why did they manufacture our Doctor's Shortage? The trouble with Medicine goes beyond the Health Care Bill to the shape of Medicine itself. That corruption has gone on for fifty years, so it is Managing Disease instead of curing disease. It is bad drugs being sold on TV. It is Statistical Medicine and malpractice by policy (Syndromes, Disorders, Standards of Acceptable Practice determined by Communist Infiltraitors and not by experts in Committee). American Medicine has been set up to fail by the millions of illegal immigrants who get free care and the violence caused by bad Government Policy (Violence is restrained by Justice. When Justice fails then violence explodes.)

Actually reading the Bills is not so tough, not for experts alone. The Bills say exactly what is being done, it just requires common sense (if that hasn't been beaten out of you by the Universities). If this Health Care Bill takes effect Best Practices will be determined by the Government instead of the current Committee Infiltraitors. Statistics will be manipulated for the sake of Political appearances. We will pay 80% for the totem pole of Federal Bureaucrats and perhaps 20% for actual care. Common Sense says all American Medical Care will cost more and increasingly Americans will die because of it.

I think you should debate Wendell Potter on live TV. I would like to see how your arguments hold up against his. I here a lot from Republicans about how great our health care is and I see it not great for a lot of the poor who go without needed health care not to save money but to avoid financial disaster. I am suspicious of people who talk about wasting money on helping the poor when there is tremendous waste in the military industrial complex and it has never had its feet held to the fire by Republicans. It seems to me that as long as it benefits rich interests Republicans are for it, and if it shares the wealth with the poor who work harder and longer than most any of the upper class do they are against it. Yes I have seen the rich work hard, and it was always doing things they enjoyed doing. The poor are "pit ponys" with little hope of rising up and with everyone seeming to forget that giving them health care is the only right thing to do. When the working poor wake up aren't you afraid of what they might end up doing without sensible fairness in our laws and taxes? I know I am, because many now tell me they won't vote but then I hear misguided thoughts about things that sound like the beginning of a very costly "revolution". If in fact you are not lying through your teeth about health care there are plenty on the other side willing and able to openly debate you. I therefor respectfully disagree with your proposals and am a huge fan of the Democratic Party and Obama. So, if you want to convince me I am wrong, debate people I respect and believe in openly and quit sniping from the sidelines like um… well fill in the gap.

[…] version of the failed experiments in socialized medicine that pockmark Western Europe. Talk about bad medicine! American citizens have been sentenced to rationed medical care, bureaucratic complexity, and […]

When the facts are so plain no argument can hide them; no talk is strong enough to alter reality. Attitude and conviction are not adequate to overcome the obvious fact that by this one bit of 'reform' legislation alone the government has shown itself to have become a criminal enterprise — will they get away with it? if it continues much longer the resulting chaos will provide us the oppportunity to regain our freedom.

There is no neat alternative.

To be charitable, perhaps these criminals will have their pictures in our history books, the miserable sons of …BigBrother.

How interesting that he criticizes that something was done to provide healthcare for those who need it, sues to stop it, and ask for money from the big, bad government anyway. For what, you ask? Healthcare! This is of course after stating that Indiana really does not need it. If that is the case, why accept it? If his healthcare program was doing such a bang up job of covering those who need it, why does Indiana need the money?! Oh, and by the way, all of you who do not live in Indiana might want to do a little more investigating on deficits in the Indiana budgets before you start singing "How great is Mitch". Seems to me it is your money that he is asking for to help fund his healthcare plan or maybe some other shortage. Man Mitch does'nt mind if you help to pay for it, if you don't.

"A study by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), Northwestern University and the Chicago Tribune, published in the newspaper Sunday, found that health care lobbyists have spent more than $396 million this year to influence senators and congressmen engaged in passing the health care restructuring legislation, and $862 million in 2008-2009 combined."

We thank the good Demo-crats from Texas and Indiana for blogging on our spot. The poor are better served by the Constitution and American Freedom than ever by their Socialist schemes. We understand the concept of Multiplication for the creation of wealth in this country. If Progressives could ever understand it then I believe that a debate could be had, but destroying the millions to save a few pathetic poor souls is beyond understanding to us Conservatives. There is no debate. The truth works and BS fails. It is that simple.

[…] last year to explain the challenges facing Indiana as a result of Obamacare. Chief among them: the likely demise of the Healthy Indiana Plan, a program that provides health insurance to 50,000 low-income residents of Indiana. That alone […]

[…] last year to explain the challenges facing Indiana as a result of Obamacare. Chief among them: the likely demise of the Healthy Indiana Plan, a program that provides health insurance to 50,000 low-income residents of Indiana. That alone […]

[…] last year to explain the challenges facing Indiana as a result of Obamacare. Chief among them: the likely demise of the Healthy Indiana Plan, a program that provides health insurance to 50,000 low-income residents of Indiana. That alone […]

The truth is this healthy indiana plan is worthless! People are paying for it with taxes and then the people who enroll also contribute but guess what? NO doctors or urgent care centers even accept it. Its a big scam!

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